6,000 Subjects Analysed by AMRA Now Available for Researchers Through UK Biobank

6,000 of 100,000 subjects in the world’s largest imaging study have now been analysed for body composition and are available for medical research

Linköping, Sweden and London, UK [January 31, 2018]: UK Biobank, a major national and international health resource, and AMRA, the international leader in body composition analysis, are proud to announce that 6,000 subjects analysed for body composition are now available through the globally-acclaimed health study. Scientists and researchers intending to use the data in research related to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of illness are now able to apply for unlimited access via the UK Biobank website.

For ten years, UK Biobank has gathered a wide range of crucial information about participants’ health and well-being, including genetic data and the health record data for its 500,000 participants. In 2016, UK Biobank launched the world’s largest health imaging study, focused on dedicated imaging of the brain, heart, bones, carotid arteries, and body composition of 100,000 UK Biobank participants.

AMRA was selected to perform the precise fat and muscle measurement of all 100,000 UK Biobank body MRIs, to be completed over the course of several years of data collection. The company’s analysis of the first 6,000 MRI scans from UK Biobank has already resulted in several accepted abstract presentations by AMRA, clearly showing a link between body composition and coronary heart disease[1], type 2 diabetes[2], sarcopenia[3] and an increased healthcare burden associated with visceral obesity.[4]

Through the phased release of these extensive datasets, UK Biobank will provide scientists and researchers with the ability to support clinical trials and produce the new biomarkers that will allow for the improved prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of a wide range of diseases, from diabetes to dementia. This aligns with one of AMRA’s goals of redefining obesity through better understanding of individual metabolic risk, and to ultimately assist in the prediction and prevention of disease.

Tommy Johansson, Chief Executive Officer of AMRA, commented, “I’m very proud that AMRA was chosen to work with UK Biobank on a project of such scale and value to the scientific community. As the largest imaging study of its kind and one of the most comprehensive, I’m looking forward to watching and learning how this initial data set – and the many scheduled to follow – will be used to help support clinical trials, improve treatments, and ultimately prevent disease. 6,000 MRI scans analysed and available for researchers, with only 94,000 to go!”

Prof. Cathie Sudlow, Chief Scientist of UK Biobank, added, “We’re very excited that the first 15,000 imaging datasets are now available across all imaging modalities, 6,000 of which include AMRA’s body composition analysis – this is a great opportunity for researchers and one that I’m sure will swiftly be taken advantage of. We’re also pleased to announce that UK Biobank has just scanned our 20,000th volunteer and we’re on track to scan the final, 100,000th participant by 2024. Once the entire database is available, it will be one of the world’s most powerful resources for medical research.”

AMRA is the first in the world to transform images from a rapid, 6-minute whole body MRI scan into precise, 3D-volumetric fat and muscle measurements. AMRA’s cloud-based analysis service offers precise, automated insights that have far-reaching implications for the pharmaceutical industry, academic R&D and, soon, clinical practice. AMRA was founded in 2010 as a spin-off of the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), the Department of Biomedical Engineering (IMT) and the Department of Medicine and Health (IMH) at Linköping University, Sweden. For more information, visit www.amramedical.com.

UK Biobank is a major national and international health resource with the aim of improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses – including cancer, heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, eye disorders, depression and forms of dementia. UK Biobank recruited 500,000 people aged between 40-69 years in 2006-2010 from across the country, when they provided lots of information about their health and well-being and donated samples of blood and urine for long-term storage and analysis, including genetic. The project has permission to follow participants’ health through medical records. UK Biobank has also embarked on a major project to MRI scan the vital internal organs and body composition of 100,000 participants. Over many years, these detailed data will build a powerful resource to help scientists discover why some people develop particular diseases and others do not, and to suggest new ways of preventing and treating them.